“You ... you....”

“Oh yes, I’m coarse and vulgar and all the rest of it, yes, I know.  But what about you men?  You’re worse than all!  Marriage—­it’s all very well for the children.  And even that....  Wasn’t it the men that wanted the State to take over all children, what?  A pretty thought—­leave your young behind you where you please—­and the State to look after them.  Make love free and beautiful.  Oh yes.  And we’re to have all the pain and trouble—­and the State to pay—­noble and generous, aren’t you?  What other beast gave you that grand idea, I wonder?  The dogs that run in the streets...?”

Olof sat motionless, watching her passionate outburst as if fascinated.  And beneath the ghastly mask he seemed to see the face of a young, innocent girl, with childish, trusting eyes, and....

“No, it’s no good your trying that,” the woman broke in.  “I know what you’re thinking of now.  You hate me, loathe me, as I am now.  And you’re asking yourself if it really can be the same little bit of a child that used to sit on your knee and look up to you as if you were God Himself!  No—­I’m not—­there’s nothing left but bitterness.  Can’t you understand?  Oh, we’re coarse and sour and harsh and all the rest—­all that you’ve made us.  But I’ll tell you what we are besides—­ourselves, ourselves, for all that!”

She rose up from the sofa, and crossing the room, sat down on a chair close to where Olof was seated.  Then, lowering her voice a little, she went on, as if striving with words and look to penetrate his soul: 

“We are women—­do you know what that means?  And we long for love—­all of us, good or bad—­or, no, there is neither good nor bad among us, we are alike.  We long for you, and for love.  But how?  Ah, you should know!  Answer me, as you would to God Himself:  of all the women you have known, has any one of them ever craved your body?  Answer, and speak the truth!”

“No—­no ... it is true!” stammered Olof confusedly.

“Good that you can be honest at least.  And that is just what makes the gulf between us.  For you, the body is all and everything, but not for us.  We can feel the same desire, perhaps—­after you have taught us.  But the thing we long for in our innermost heart—­you never give us.  You give us moments of intoxication, no more.  And we are foolish enough to trust you.  We are cheated of our due, but we hope on; we come to you and beg and pray for it, until at last we realise that you can give us nothing but what in itself, by itself, only fills us with loathing....”

Olof breathed hard, as in a moment’s respite at the stake, with the lash still threatening above his head.

“Yes, that is your way.  You take us—­but why will you never take us wholly?  You give us money, or fine clothes, a wedding ring even—­but never yourselves, never the thing we longed for in you from the first.  You look on love as a pastime only; for us, it is life itself.  But you never understand, only wash your hands of it all, and go your own ways self-satisfied as ever.”